


it's the kind of night that you're looking to hide

by falterth



Series: Naruto Femslash Week 2018 [5]
Category: Naruto
Genre: ANBU - Freeform, BAMF Sakura, BAMF Temari, F/F, Naruto Femslash Week 2018, Rated Teen for mentions of death, mentions of hooking up, uzumaki sakura
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 15:50:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15822066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falterth/pseuds/falterth
Summary: “Temari? What are you doing here?”“I could ask you the same thing.”(Temari’s given a mission to kill the Fire daimyo. Sakura’s objective: the Wind daimyo’s head in a bag. They meet while crossing the border. Things get awkward. Naruto Femslash Week 2018 day two, “ANBU” prompt.)





	it's the kind of night that you're looking to hide

**Author's Note:**

> Title lifted from the song, "Millions (The Party)" by The Amazons.

Breathe. In, out, in out. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Regulate chakra to the feet. Make sure you don’t slip on the sand, on the brush. This is what Temari tells herself during the long trek to the one part of the Wind-Fire border that is usually unguarded. Of course—there’s a high chance that she’ll meet shinobi hoping to sneak into Wind, in which case she will kill them. Breathe. In, out, in out, until you’ve reached your destination.

Temari slows down a good three kilometers before she reaches the border. Already, the desert looks darker—darker with plantlife. There’s less sand for the moonlight to shine on. It’s cool out here. Cold, even. Temperature has never much bothered her. She can’t _let_ it bother her, not this time, at least. This is one of the most important missions she’s taken—even more so because they’re supposed to be at peace with Konoha. They’re supposed to be allies.

What a joke.

Temari shakes her head and pushes away her resentment. She’s a grown woman. She can handle her own damn self, and she doesn’t need a grudge—no matter how valid—to cloud her judgement. She’d like to keep the death count to a minimum, this time, although she’s a bit wary of being recognized. Temari hasn’t unlearnt how to kill people with poisons. For the gods’ sakes, she’s practically brought along every poison that she had access to. It’s the Suna way. Get in, poison _everything—_ clothes, food, candles, bedsheets, the _floor,_ people—and get out.

Temari’s slated to become the next poisons master in her village. It’s the only reason she let Kankurō take the hat instead of her. So it’s logical that she would throw herself into poisons, into everything related to poisons and their cures. Temari has about two antidotes to every dose of poison she’s carrying with her. No slip-ups. She’s in the middle of resistance training right now, but she’s still vulnerable to over three quarters of her supply. It’s a weakness for someone with her specialty—one that’ll be corrected, but for now, it’s a weakness.

She’s approaching the border. Her tune changes.

In, out, in out. To your chakra: in, in, in. In until it hums just beneath your skin. In until only natural sensors would be able to find you.

She tells this to herself, gathering her chakra and layering it deep inside of herself. She feels jumpy. Suppressing her chakra always does this to her; it’s like trying to compress a liquid. It feels wrong, and her chakra resists her and flows away from her and is hard to contain, but unlike water, or any other liquid . . . it obeys, eventually. Once she’s satisfied that she’s masked her presence, she starts making her way toward the spot. She cautiously throws her chakra like a net over the surrounding area, trying to snag any presences in it.

She comes up with nothing and allows herself to smile underneath her ANBU mask. It’s a standard clay mask, held on to her face with a sticking seal that she can disrupt at will. And it lets her retain her peripheral vision, which is the main upside. It fits over her face like a second skin, leaving only her eyes uncovered. Her hair is up in a severe bun, almost tight enough to make her scalp ache, hidden by a loose-fitting hood that attaches to the top of her mask.

She continues on slowly, not encountering anyone. It’s to be expected, of course—it’s the very corner of Fire’s territory. The border is a sharp, irregular angle that neither Suna nor Konoha shinobi care to check on because nobody suspects that a Suna shinobi would travel that far just to cross, because after that it’s a five-day trek to Konoha, a four-day trek to the capital, and Suna shinobi are known for being _fast._ They need to be in and out as quickly as they can so they can go back to their villages and sign up for the next available mission.

For the most part, Temari thinks to herself, they’re right. No one comes out here save for those on the most important of missions. Temari is one of those shinobi.

She takes one last step, and she’s pretty sure that she’s cleared the border already. Good. Now she needs to find somewhere to sleep. Her internal clock tells her it’s most likely around 0100 hours. She can afford to sleep for seven hours, and if she’s still tired after that she’ll just take a soldier pill and carry on until she’s really deep into Fire’s forests.

“Temari?” Fucking hell. “What are you doing here?”

It’s Sakura, the infamous pink-haired Uzumaki. Of all the people that could catch her here, it’s the sensor. The _sensor._ Quite possibly the only person who’d recognize her chakra. The girl she’d had a slight crush on during the chūnin exams. Gods, they’d been—what, thirteen and fourteen? It’s been _six years._ Temari fights the urge to curse.

“I could ask you the same thing,” she returns steadily.

When faced with an enemy, stay cool. Stay calm. Use everything you have to make them feel comfortable. Get as much information out of them as you can. Only share information if it’s common knowledge, if it’s false, or if you judge it to be the best course of action. This is what her father had told her and her brothers during their lessons to become a shinobi.

Temari has a feeling, though, that Sakura is after the same thing she is—in a different way, but still the same thing.

“Eh, why not,” Sakura says, shrugging and coming into the light. She’s not wearing a mask. Temari wants to facepalm. “I think we both know what we’re doing here.”

“If you’re here for our daimyo . . . ”

“Then I’m assuming you’re out to kill ours,” Sakura guesses. And damn her, she’s right. Temari stays silent. Untrusting. Wary. “Well. This is awkward.”

“What?” Temari asks. “Awkward?”

Never ask questions unless you think you’ll get an answer. _Never_ answer questions with another question unless you’re sure your enemy won’t snap at you and kill you for it. Her father had told her that. Oh, well. Temari disregards a lot of the things her father says because for the most part she believes he’s full of shit. She’s almost glad he’d been so badly crippled from his battle with Orochimaru that he’d had to quit the position.

“Yeah,” Sakura says. “I mean, think about it. We’re both here to take out the civilian leaders of each others’ countries. Awkward doesn’t even begin to cover it. By the way, the Fire daimyo is a piece of shit who’s only in the position because he pulled strings. I’d love to take him out myself.”

Okay, Temari thinks. Not only did Sakura get _hot_ during those six years, she also got _stupid._

“Why are you telling me this?” Temari asks, crossing her arms. She’s decided that the only way out of this is a battle to the death. “Are we going to kill each other or not? I don’t have all night.”

Sakura frowns. “Use that brain of yours, Temari. I know you have one. What do _you_ think of your daimyo?” Temari honestly thinks that he’s a greedy money-grubber who’s forcing the civilians of her village to live in even worse conditions than they’d been in before. But she shouldn’t share that with Sakura. “Oh, come on,” Sakura sighs. “I’m trying to make a deal with you here. We both know that our daimyos put these missions up at the same time, most likely because of failed negotiations— _illegal_ negotiations, to boot, because Konoha? We didn’t know about it.” Sakura stops to take a breath. Temari silently judges her for divulging information about her village like this. Then again . . . she’s not wrong. And, for the most part, this is the kind of information that’s already common knowledge. “And I bet that the mission came as a surprise to you too. But when the daimyo himself orders ‘his’ shinobi to do something stupid . . . ”

Sakura trails off, but Temari gets her meaning. “We pretend to do it. Immediately,” she finishes.

“Right,” Sakura says, nodding. “So it’s only natural for us to have met at this border. Only shinobi on _important_ missions cross this border.”

Temari sighs. Sakura’s not the hotheaded girl she’d been during the chūnin exams. She’s . . . cool, now. Arrogant, maybe, but Temari would guess that she’s got the power to back up all her talk. If this conversation goes wrong, she could probably kill Temari. That thought doesn’t invoke as much fear as it should, Temari feels a smile threatening to break out on her face. “What happened to you?” she asks curiously. “You’re so . . . ”

“You know,” Sakura says, shrugging, “being a spymaster does that to you.”

“Sakura—”

“Just kidding. If I were a spymaster, I wouldn’t tell you. I might be head of T&I, though,” Sakura says.

Spymaster. T&I. Both options sound plausible. It’d explain how Sakura knows so much at least, Gods, this woman is terrifying. It’s more appealing than Temari would like to admit. _Much_ more appealing. A little terrifying, yes, but that’s part of the attraction. “So you’re trying to make a deal with me.”

Sakura nods. “Technically, Konoha and Suna have a treaty. We’re not supposed to take harmful actions against each other. But a kunoichi killing her _own_ daimyo? None of that is covered in the contract. And, really . . . we could stand to benefit from a change in leadership.”

“Sakura . . . you’re planning a revolution with an enemy shinobi,” Temari says. She’s tempted, though. It’s a tantalizing offer.

“I’m planning a revolution with a _powerful_ enemy shinobi,” Sakura says right back, grinning widely. Ferally. Temari’s mouth feels dry. “That makes it all the different. I saw you during your visit to Konoha for the chūnin exams. Felt your chakra. I feel it now, feel how much it's grown. I can take you. If you don’t agree to the deal . . . that’s too bad.”

Gods. Sakura’s definitely T&I. There’s no way she isn’t. Temari can believe that she heads the whole department. She, right now, is willing to believe almost anything Sakura feeds her. As long as she comes out of it in one piece.

“Suna’s killing style is very recognizable,” Sakura adds, almost as though it’s an afterthought. “And so is Konoha’s . . . come to think of it, why are we—”

“Okay,” Temari says, holding up a hand. “I’m in. I don’t doubt you could handle me in a fight.” Handle me in other ways, too, Temari wants to add. Gods _damn_ her and her random (not-so-random) intrusive thoughts. “So . . . what? Exchange bodies in a week here?”

Sakura seems to consider it for a moment. “Eight days, and just heads. I don’t have a storage seal capable of preserving a whole body. My capital’s farther from this point than your is, and I’d have to stop by Konoha, which would take at least two more days.”

“You’re . . . you’re right,” Temari allows.

Sakura nods at her. Her eyes are _unnerving._ They’re purple, normally, but they look almost black now. Temari can only see a little bit of light reflected off them. Gods. If she finds herself attracted to Sakura now, after _six years_ of not seeing her . . . ah, hell. She’s already consorting with the enemy.

“Any chance you’d be willing to delay for a few more hours?”


End file.
